


Dumb Asshole's Guide to Raising the Dead

by G_J_Smith



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Additional Tags/Warnings to be added, Gen, Ghosts, Horror Comedy, Illustrated Fic, Necromancy, Occult, i still don't know how to tag things, implied Ocekaz at least, moving images, ocekaz death pact
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-05-06 08:19:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14637849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/G_J_Smith/pseuds/G_J_Smith
Summary: Going off the idea of Ocelot and Kaz forming a death pact to stop Big Boss's reign of terror. Kaz jokes about experimenting with a less... orthodox method of eliminating him, calling down a Lovecraftian nightmare, and sucking all of Mother Base into an oozing vortex of hell and the stained, forsaken corners of the past."You see, Boss, we had a bet going over whether or not it would even work-"Or: "How I learned to stop worrying and show my mom the affection she deserves."





	1. The Gang Plays Chicken with Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> "Gill, is every Metal Gear fic you write going to be about The Boss getting dragged back from the beyond to go on a whirlwind tour of all the bullshit people perpetuated in her absence?" 
> 
> Yeah. What're you gonna do, stop me? 
> 
> The justification for this whole shebang is loosely ripped off from [Until We Dance Into The Fire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12738810) by Heavvymetalqueen, though I'm playing pretty fast and loose with the idea, so all you need to know is what's in the summary. Additionally, I'm also playing fast and loose with how Mother Base is uh, laid out as a physical space? And also the only reference available to me is YouTube videos of the target practice Side Ops. 
> 
> Special thanks to Jasp for the final line of the summary and Kinsey for the title I ended up going with.
> 
> Dedicated to my own mother, who is proud of me for some reason.

It started as a joke.

"Here's an idea for you."

The sheaf of paper skidded across Ocelot's desk, scattering the intel reports he'd been compiling to the floor. Ocelot regarded the intruding document with more patience than it earned and flipped over a page before raising an eyebrow at Diamond Dogs' sub-commander.

"This sounds like something you'd argue with me about over Venom's radio."

Kaz shrugged as he settled himself into his own office chair. "Had a brainwave was all," he said, more breezily than he'd proposed anything in ages. "I was thinking about our...long-term plans when I remembered something from the decrypted AI Pod files."

"What's Strangelove's occult phase got to do with things?"

Kaz leaned back in his chair, slinging an arm across the armrest and kicking his feet up. It was just a stupid aside to take the edge off, once he had taken a step back and smacked himself for how absurd the idea was. "Dunno if I'd call it a 'phase', considering what that pod ended up doing."

Ocelot rolled his eyes at him and Kaz grinned. "I hear the staff swap a _lot_ of scary stories about it over at R &D."

"The human mind is an extraordinary thing, capable of many great feats as well as many self-induced deceptions."

Kaz snorted at the edge of sarcasm in Ocelot's condescending tone. Yeah, talk about irony, but now he had to keep this going.

"And recreating a person's character, as in the case of the AI Pod or Venom," Ocelot continued, "is entirely feasible if you have the pieces in place. This..." he gestured at the reports Kaz had tossed him, "this is pure fantasy."

His sly smile must've kept Ocelot's interest, despite his attempts to get back to work. "What?" he asked as he retrieved scattered papers off the floor.

Kaz waved a hand. "Nothing, nothing. I just think it's funny."

"What's funny?"

"You're right, if the Boss came across something like this, we'd be going back and forth on it 'til the cows came home. But usually, I'm the one shutting it down, while you're the one saying things like 'Boss, think of the opportunity this batshit idea gives us,'" he drawled in a thick, exaggerated Texan accent.

A spark in Ocelot's eyes let slip that he'd caught on. "You're right, but," he put up a finger, "I've never recommended trying to solve a problem with magic."

"But Ocelot," Kaz went on, keeping up his bad impression of the other man. "This _could_ solve our Boss problem!"

Ocelot narrowed his eyes, staring down the bait. "What exactly do you plan to do with her notes, sic a poltergeist on him? Even Strangelove herself dismissed the idea."

"Well, I know it sounds fucking nuts, but-" Kaz said quickly. Now that he had to explain himself to Ocelot instead of just goading him, it was hard to ignore that it did sound ridiculous. But hey, as begrudgingly as he had to, he'd admit that the ridiculous ideas tended to work, and those ridiculous ideas tended to be Ocelot's. Even though, unlike those cases, there was no way this ridiculous idea was a serious suggestion.

Ocelot wasn't about to bite down on the hook for nothing, though. "Such is the price of being an out-of-the-box thinker," he said, urging Kaz on.

"Well..." Kaz trailed off. Ok, time to circle around to an explanation that didn't sound to* insane. "I really was thinking about the plan when I remembered the report. About what Strangelove was researching, and exactly what it was intended to do."

"'Waking the dead,' I gathered. It's amazing..." Ocelot turned over a few pages, scanning Strangelove's findings on her prelude idea to the Mammal Pod. "...frightening, even, the lengths she was willing to go to."

"I know, it's some scary shit. But it wasn't just because of scientific skepticism that she didn't go deeper. Remember, this is the woman who put her AI research lab in the temple of a goddess." Kaz gestured at the document. "Read it over again. Devil's in the details."

Ocelot humored him, turning over grainy scans of old manuscripts and their lengthy transcriptions to find a passage that'd been pretty damn entertaining to read. Kaz had highlighted the best sections.

"...oh, wow."

"You can find the same underpinnings in mythology around the world, that 'what's dead should stay dead.' I guess that means full-blown resurrection is impossible. But plenty of cultures have traditions about those who have passed on... coming to visit."

"You're not about to bust out a oujia board on me, are you?"

"Nope. What caught my interest was a little less Poltergeist and a little more..." Kaz's wicked grin returned as he trailed off. "Check out page thirty-eight."

Ocelot gave him a skeptical look before he flipped the pages over. Kaz could see him calculating a smart retort as his eyes scanned back and forth. "...try a little less Poltergeist and a little more Lovecraft, if you shoved him in a blender with Cronenberg and a handful of queludes."

"It's pretty heartless, I'll grant you that, but hey," Kaz gave a small shrug - that was why he had wanted to share it in the first place, "the best solution to a problem is the easiest one, right? You could set this up so that it'd be a lot less time and effort to take out Big Boss. Fewer variables to consider, a lot fewer bystanders to get caught in the crossfire..."

Ocelot looked up at him, tossing Strangelove's notes back onto his desk. "Thinking about the logistics of a joke, huh?"

"If I wanted to tell it to a stick in the mud like you, yeah, I gotta have a whole damn elevator pitch ready." he jabbed a finger at Ocelot, engineering a punchline to end this little tangent on. "Admit it, actually raising the dead would be way less convoluted than your plan."

Kaz got an "mm-hm" as Ocelot turned his attention back to his intel reports.

Huh.

That wasn't the reaction he wanted.

"At least, trying it would be less convoluted," Kaz pressed.

Ocelot didn't even look up. "Yes, but to what end? And at what price?"

"Try some basic chemistry and a bunch of candles."

"Of course, _can't_ forget the candles. And also," Ocelot grabbed the report again and began reciting the remaining ingredients, "carbon, water, salt, salt peter... I was talking about our self-respect, Kaz. You know, our ability to take ourselves seriously?"

"Fifty bucks says it works."

He had Ocelot's attention again, even if it was the same face a teacher might make at a chronic troublemaker.

"Fifty bucks says we try it and _something_ happens," Kaz repeated, unsatisfied with the dismissive response. Here he had been hoping he wouldn't be the only one getting a dark little laugh out of the thought of doing a little magic and getting Big Boss chased into hell by his own nightmares. Yeah, right, if only it could be that easy.

"You gone believing in ghost stories? What's dead stays dead, Kaz, that's nature, all else is wishful thinking."

"I'm not talking zombies or an actual apparitions or anything like that, hell, I'll even take lights flickering or the room getting cold." Kaz sat up, leaning towards Ocelot as he cut across the air to punctuate. "Anything even vaguely supernatural happens, I win and you owe me. If not, it'll be the easiest money you ever earned, to say nothing of the satisfaction of being right again."  
  
Ocelot held eye contact while he formally folded over to their chosen page.

"...alright, you're on." He pointed a finger at him, "But only to exhaust your so-called 'potential' option."

He said it with a spark of laughter to match Kaz's tight grin. It felt good, joking around about a ridiculous Halloween spectacle. At least, that was how it started.

 

* * *

 

 

Ocelot made it a challenge.

No surprise that he saw through Kaz from the very start. The bet itself was laughable: of course nothing was going to happen. It couldn't. You made this shit up to scare teenagers, to tell your buddies so you could laugh at the first one to get scared while you passed the time on night watch. Ocelot had effectively dared him into climbing to this point and was now waiting at ground level, ready to gloat when Kaz admitted he'd got his ass stuck. He expected him to surrender.

Well, that was never gonna fucking happen. If one thing had kept him alive all these years, it was Kaz's unwillingness to roll over and die without burning his killer to the ground along with him. No, Ocelot had made it a challenge, "give up before you humiliate yourself". And Kaz's response was to say "fuck you" and double down.

So he'd humiliate himself either way. Congratulations, Kazuhira, you played yourself.

Maybe he ought to just flaunt it, save face by showing his ass and tell the world just how much he did not give one shit what it thought of him. Of course, if he had the balls for that, he'd be doing this in broad daylight, not slinking through R&D's catwalks at night, Mag-Lite in hand, to gather ingredients for what he refused to call a magic spell.

He came up behind the black monolith via the stairway to its rear. The AI Pod hummed to itself as he skirted past it. Now here was a good reason to be here this late; The staff were winding themselves up with those scary stories and reported sightings kept appearing in his in-tray. If he investigated himself, maybe they'd start listening when he told them they were tricking themselves into seeing phantoms. Oh no, he totally wasn't dismissing the idea, he had gone to check it out himself and nothing had happened.

They'd gathered that the pod reacted to sound, motion, light, anything that indicated someone was approaching its immediate vicinity. This made it annoying in the daytime, when everything seemed to set it off. Sure, the monologue in that measured, modulated voice could make a guy curious the first time you heard it, but it wore on the nerves. It was like Christmas music: Sure, the songs were fine on their own, but when you had to listen to that one warbling asshole go through Rudolph, Frosty, Jingle Bells, Kristoff the Kringlefucker, and all the rest of the North Pole Forced Merriment Parade on an interminable loop, the charm wore off. Fast.

But at night... well, you could hear the pod for quite a ways off outside its enclosure. If you blocked a light or made too much noise and didn't recognize where the responding voice was coming from, you could easily make the mistake of thinking you weren't alone. That, Kaz had always figured, was a rational explanation for the so-called ghost sightings. If you could turn the pod off, they'd disappear overnight. Unfortunately, the only one who had worked out the override procedure was Ocelot, and he'd neglected to share his methods. None of the staff wanted to be the one to ask first, either, because doing so would be admitting you let an old computer get under your skin.

That was what it was: an old computer. Just an old machine. It was ten years out of date, had spent years at the bottom of a lake. If Strangelove had given it the voice of anyone else, they'd be dismantling it for scrap.

Kaz could see the red light on the pod's exterior glowing and dimming as he passed by, like the machine was breathing as it hummed its little song. It could be eerily life-like for a machine, he'd give it that.

For good measure, Kaz swept the Mag-Lite's beam over the containment area to see if he could expose any phantoms. He saw AI Pod blink briefly into awareness and then go back to humming as he proceded to the chemical store rooms, having predictably found nothing.

Surprisingly, Base Management used many of the occult recipe book's called-for ingredients for filtering the water supply. They probably wouldn't miss around, oh, maybe, 45 pounds of filter charcoal? 55 to be on the safe side. He'd order more, it wasn't that much GMP, and he'd _told_ Venom he'd need to wait a quarter or two on the conservation platform's aquarium expansion anyway. The rest, Kaz reasoned, and found he'd reasoned correctly, could be procured from R &D's labs. It was funny; throw 'em all together, and you had the basic breakdown of the human body, and three of the mix - sulfer, salt peter, carbon - could also be combined to make gunpowder.

They could set the stuff aside in one of the warehouses Ocelot kept empty until they had a free evening during a full moon, because of course you had to do it on a full moon. The authors of these ancient mystical tomes must've been cribbing one another's notes. Now, arranging the materials it per instructions was going to be a pain in the ass, so if they could engineer a shortcut...

He passed behind the AI Pod again on his way back out, just for good measure, so he could definitively tell the night shift there was no such thing as ghosts. Bit of a shame, really, otherwise he might've had a chance at not eating shit with this bet.

He was at the top of the stairs when the red eye blinked on again.

[ "Jack? Is that you?" ]

Kaz glanced at the half of the containment area the pod was bathing in red. He saw no movement, but he thought he could see - maybe not a human shape, but it wasn't _not_ human-shaped.

The flashlight revealed nothing. The AI Pod hummed as it kicked its fans on, sweeping a red scanner beam over the whole room and him along with it. Kaz half-expected it to reveal a prowling shadow, even if he knew he'd never actually see Big Boss coming before he struck. But, as far as he could see, he was still alone. The canned voice line was just a coincidence, the shadow his damaged vision playing tricks. Synchronicity and suggestion.

[ "Kazuhira?" ]

He clicked the flashlight off again, mumbling a "just on my way out." Man, the guards were right, that _was_ creepy-

Wait, shit, that reminded him of something. Back through R&D he went, looking for the last piece of what he wasn't calling a "ritual" nor a magical spell. He found what he nearly forgot in a locker with the prototype for that fucking chicken hat and doubled back through the pod's enclosure one last time.

Reports from the night shift sometimes talked about a human figure lurking around the pod, calling their names in its voice. All just synchronicity and the power of suggestion. People heard the voice and expected it to come from a person, not a machine. And it was a smart machine, no reason it couldn't pick up on the staff's code names. They expected to see someone there and their eyes started playing tricks on them in the dark. And Kaz could barely see shit to begin with, no wonder his brain was making up phantoms.

[ "Kazuhira." ]

Yeah, the name thing was unsettling. Especially if the pod eased off the mechanical edge in its voice. Kaz shoved the bandana into a coat pocket and kept moving.

"Kazuhira Miller."

Somehow it sounded closer that time, and Kaz actually looked over his shoulder. Nope, still no shadowy figures that he could-

_"Don't do this."_

The unfamiliar voice had hissed right in his ear and Kaz swore he could _feel breath._ His reaction was pure instinct, spinning and swinging wildly at the darkness, memory shrieking at him about Skulls in the mist. Something solid caught his arm and he only barely swallowed a scream.

Ocelot did look ghoulish in the dim light, but not enough to warrant that reaction.

"Easy, there," he said, holding Kaz steady til he found a way to rebalance himself. "The hell are you doing here this late?"

Kaz pulled his arm out of Ocelot's grip, only to immediately fall into him, having dropped his cane in his attempt to brain a ghost with a flashlight. He was quick to retrieve it, like Ocelot would feel his heartrate hammering if they were touching too long. The rush of blood made his head spin. Had he actually heard what he just heard?

"...Prep work," Kaz ground out as he got up. "I'm not losing this bet just because we halfassed it."

Ocelot folded his arms. "I was wondering why Base Management was suddenly coming up a good 20 kilos short on filter charcoal," he said, pointedly not probing into Kaz's moment of terror, or why said prep work needed to be done in the dead of night.

"Hey, it takes a lot of carbon to grow your own abomination," Kaz shrugged, forcing himself to calm down. If he lied to himself, he could say it had just been Ocelot fucking with him. The voice had been deep enough to be his, and who else had the nerve to try and sneak up on him? "I've got it all accounted for, plus wiggle room to get it to total up to the target body mass."

"Oh, so you've already picked out your favorite vengeful spirit?" Kaz made a show of huffing at Ocelot's veiled amusement. "Good luck, they're apparently picky that you get that right. And of course, the manuscripts' measurements are lowballing it at best. You would have to-"

"Adjust them for the avatar you had in mind." He was more than happy to cut Ocelot off. Fuck yeah, he'd covered that particular base. "Check page 95, Strangelove's already done the math."

The light from the AI Pod at his back reflected red off Ocelot's eyes. Kaz had to repress the urge to look over his shoulder when Ocelot glanced past him.

"I don't s'pose I need to point out who she was adjusting for."

"Yeah. And?"

Ocelot was scrutizining him with his eyes again, expecting him to elaborate. Seeing if Kaz would really dare invoke the closest thing Big Boss had to a deity.

Oh, he dared, alright.

"We'd need a some piece of the subject." Ocelot pointed out when Kaz made no attempt to justify himself. "You planning to go grave-robbing in Arlington Cemetary just to follow those instructions?"

"That's not necessary." Kaz fished out the drowned strip of fabric. The adrenaline still in his system made his nerves sing over this hook he'd managed to get in the other man. He didn't even need to lure him in this time. "'A piece' can mean a biological component or a personal effect."

Was he imagining it, or did something change in Ocelot's expression? Was it an echo of the one he'd seen on Big Boss himself, going somewhere far away before a voice on a cassette tape made him break out in a cold sweat?

"...You're resting on questionable logic, there. That bandana was personal to Strangelove, who's to say it wouldn't go 'summoning' her?"

"You have any other ideas?" Is there anyone else that bastard cares about enough to feel guilt for? he didn't say. Isn't that why that creepy fucking computer is still here, because it's been 20 years and he still can't let it go?

The worst that can happen is nothing, he also didn't say, because that would be as good as admitting defeat. But holy shit, if it could... well, there was a reason that angry teenagers liked this sort of thing.

The light blinked off Ocelot's eyes.

"...Do you actually think this'll work, Kaz?"

Kaz lowered the bandana back into his pocket as he considered his answer, only to stop because he swore he saw Ocelot's eyes start to follow it.

"...I never cared, to be honest," he decided, stepping over anything Ocelot could potentially turn around and throw back at him. "Why, do you?"

He wanted the question to be a joke at his expense, but some small part of Ocelot was far away.

Kaz tried a grin, teeth glinting and stained in the AI Pod's light. Ocelot's flat look didn't change as leather gloves ghosted across the back of Kaz's hand, guiding it back into his coat pocket.

"I just hope you're prepared to be right."

And with that he broke off, definitely glancing in the direction of that damn machine, tugging Kaz toward the stairwell out of the containment area. For an instant, there was a flash of - anxiety? Worry, maybe? - in his distant expression. Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance.

"What I was afraid of..." Ocelot murmured, eyes on the sky as they descended into the guts of R&D. "You did drive over here, right? With the top down?"

You had to have known him for, oh, about nine years, but the off-hand mumble sounded just a bit too natural to actually _be_ natural. Thoughts didn't just slip out like that. "Yeah," Kaz said defensively, making it clear he was prepared to argue about the merits of driving one-handed.

"Try not to make it a habit. Turning up here at night, I mean, unless you want to be the source of more ghost sightings." Ocelot spoke at full volume as they walked away, no more lowered voices to avoid disturbing the pod and whatever synchronicity and suggestion told them was there with it. Wherever the hell Ocelot had gone, he was back now in full force.

Kaz rolled his eyes, hearing the AI Pod's voice receding above them. "Oh, is that why you turned up."

"I saw the car and figured I would check in," Ocelot said dismissively.

"How well did you know The Boss, Ocelot?"

Speaking of driving, Kaz could almost _hear_ the brakes screeching when he jerked the wheel into the other lane. Ocelot actually hadn't been expecting the question. Probably thought Kaz hadn't noticed the change when she entered the conversation. Most people wouldn't have. So, it seemed even Revolver Ocelot lived in her shadow.

Ocelot looked over his shoulder at him and raised an eyebrow. "Why do you ask?"

"You're the one who figured out the override. That, and the bandana."

He hadn't actually been positive about that one, not all the way. Snake had refused to either name its origins or take it off, until he returned from Lake Nicaragua with a solemn "she betrayed me, Kaz," and the beloved bandana nowhere to be found. But then it had gone from a note on an autopsy report ("tied around her right upper arm") to quietly stashed in a locker in R&D. One way or another, Ocelot had unwittingly confirmed Kaz's guess, and that felt good.

"You would've worked with her during Snake Eater, right?" Kaz insisted. Ocelot had called The Man on Fire "our old friend Volgin". The guy had been there, they had to at least have crossed paths.

"'Worked with' is an exaggeration. She had her unit and I had mine, our minds were on our own objectives."

He had to be dodging the question. Whether or not he knew it, he'd let something slip up there in the pod's enclosure. Or he'd done it deliberately to let Kaz run himself into a wall, he realized. Yeah, that sounded like Ocelot.

"I guess I was just curious," Kaz offered. "Snake never wanted to talk about her much, but I'll admit, I kind of wonder about the stuff the pod rambles on about."

He was drilling down with the question, but for the first time since... Costa Rica, maybe, Kaz found he was actuallywondering about that untouchable figure of a woman. Like if he had known her, he'd have some vital clue to deciphering Big Boss and now, Ocelot.

Walking down R&D's lattice of catwalks made Ocelot's spurs jingle, a noise Kaz realized he hadn't heard at all when he had emerged from the dark. Creepy.

"Who knows, if you're right, maybe you'll get to ask her."

There was something in Ocelot's cadence that most people would mistake for for sarcasm, but to Kaz, it sounded... off, somehow.

"...maybe. Strangelove always made it sound like she was the only person The Boss was willing to open up t-"

Ocelot looked at him when he cut himself off mid-sentence. "...What?"

A hush fell between them as Kaz tried and failed to listen for the unfamiliar addition to the platform's soundscape. He shook his head. "Thought I heard somet-"

Ocelot had put up a hand for silence; he'd heard it too. The pair of them wordlessly drew closer together, almost back-to-back, straining to catch the noise underneath the mechanical rhythm of the platform. Was it the scrape of a boot on a catwalk? A raspy whisper?

Something blew by, like the front preceding a storm. It whistled eerily through the stairways and Kaz swore he felt Ocelot flinch, brushing his ribs with his elbow.

"What is it?" Kaz whispered. Ocelot said nothing but began to lead him downwards again. Kaz was slow, still watching the darkness behind them. Rain started to drip through the jungle gym of stairways, drowning out whatever it was Kaz thought he'd heard. Still, he looked up through the metal canopy one last time - a flash of lightning revealed a human silhouette several landings above them.

Ocelot grabbed his shoulder and practically shoved him out in front of him. "Come _on,_ " he said, strangely hushed.

"Hang on, I thought I saw something-"

Thunder crashed overhead. Had there even been a storm in the forecast today?

"Just a pressure front," Ocelot said. This time he actually sounded like he was talking to himself. His whole frame seemed rattled. "Come on, let's get out of here."


	2. The Gang Commits a Mathematical Felony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GIF warning: Please be advised, the following chapter contains some mild flashing images. 
> 
> Additionally, this marks the start of some experimentation with special effects and media blending. My plan is to ramp those elements up from here if things go well, and there'll likely be a few kinks to work out in the meantime. 
> 
> Also I apologize in advance to... basically all readers using something other the default desktop browser view. Like I said, there's a few kinks to work out.

Kaz was more than willing to meet the challenge, and it was turning into a... problem.

If Ocelot dug his way down to the heart of the issue, he could've called Miller one of the most mundane people he'd ever had the pleasure of working with long-term. Just a man looking to wring the most he could for himself out of a chaotic world. And while it had been ages since the term "mundane" had truly applied to him, the fact remained that mundane people did not consider that world in the same way people like Ocelot did. When it wasn't a part of your day-to-day, the inexplicable was a curiosity, a subject of intellectual or perhaps philosophical inquiry at best. You didn't need to pick it apart, explain how it worked, dismantle how a man could lie in unsupported suspended animation for two decades and then be resuscitated as an amalgam of plasma, bullets, and hatred under the puppeteering of a reality-warping eight-year-old. No. Kaz, like most people, just wanted to be right about this ritual thing. About the class-A inexplicable. The "M" word.

"And you're _sure_ what happened doesn't warrant further investigation?"

"You sure are desperate to have half a chance at this bet, aren’t you?"

Kaz had been absent-mindedly chewing on the end of his pen while Ocelot brought down the final judgment on the so-called ghost sightings. Outsįde, another rainstorm turned ev͟e̴ryth̶i̸ng b͘eyond Command into mi͏sty ͏g̶ra͜y si̛lh̴ou̕et͏tes. There had been quite a few unseasonal showers these past few days.

Ocelot leaned, cat-like, on the edge of the desk. Two gloved fingers came down and neatly spread a pair of documents he'd filled out. To their credit, most of the alleged R&D ghost sightings were sober and fairly rational. “Unidentified persons sighted on deck, made no response when warned, fled when approached and could not be found afterwards” was a common theme, sometimes with the added spice of the AI Pod's voice - heard clear on the opposite side of the strut, where it had no business being.. All written off as synchronicity and suggestion in his neat handwriting. Because what else could they be?

"Do you really think anything paranormal happened," he asked, fixing Kaz with a look, "or was it just you jumping at shadows?"

Kaz leaned forward, rolling his pen between his fingers. Though he was skeptical, Ocelot could feel the beginnings of a smug grin.

"...you saw something." The end of the pen flicked towards him as Ocelot lounged, crossing an arm over Kaz's. "I _know_ you did. I don't think I've ever seen you act the way you did that night."

Ocelot cocked his head, playing up a smirk, like he didn't have a care in the world. "Not even the Algeria job?"

"I seem to recall you saying you had that under control."

"I told you that to keep you from panicking."

Kaz graced him with an eye roll as he pulled out of their collision course in the center of his workspace, scanning the reports over for errors he wouldn't find. Okay. Kaz had never been easily won by charm alone, anyway.

Ocelot held his position on the desk, bouncing his heels in the silence, til he sensed the tension start to wind up. The pattering of the rain outside couldn't drown them out on its own, so he moved around to Kaz's side, spurs jangling. The commander didn’t look up at him just yet.

"So what were you doing there that night?"

Ocelot readily presented his answer rather than let the silence linger. "Looking into the ghost sightings, same as you."

"I thought you didn't take them seriously."

"Well, neither did you, but we had enough of 'em piling up. Was worth checking out if only to put the staff's minds at ease."

"Did _you_ see any ghosts?"

One hand settled on the back of the desk chair, just behind Kaz's head, the other resting on Ocelot's hip as he smirked. "No such thing."

Kaz swiveled to face Ocelot fully. He expected his presenting to be met with annoyance, but no, Kaz was still matching him for smug confidence. He dropped to a huskier tone. "I'll bet you're dead wrong about that."

Kaz acquiescing to the ceasefire rather than continuing to push his point. Quid pro quo, with more added bonuses than the offer Kaz accepted when he hooked his good leg around Ocelot's to pull the chair closer. In his negotiating history, that was Miller signaling he thought he had the upper hand.

Oh sure, let him think - don't look at them, you know it only encourages them - let him think that he knows ab-

Ice spiked through Ocelot’s right hand as the desk chair was ripped violently out from under him. He distantly heard Kaz yell "what the _fuck-_ " as he attempted to catch himself. But before he could regain his balance, all hopes of not ending up on the floor were dashed by the chair's armrest. Such an unassuming component of the office furnishings; normally, it was docile, unless you had to negotiate with it to accommodate a position the chair was not intended for. But today, Kaz's desk chair took vengeance for the disrespect Ocelot had shown it with his spur-clad trysts, with one hell of a right hook right into his groin. Armrest met crotch, and Ocelot's face said "hello" to the floor.

Testicular trauma aside, the shock was worse than the actual pain. He’d worse on a typical Tuesday. But as he reflexively cringed himself into the post-nutshot fetal position, Ocelot took one look upwards and abruptly decided that, actually, he and his injured masculine pride were just going to stay down here, if it was all the same to everyone else in the room.

Don't look, it only encourages them.

"Holy shit..." Kaz mumbled over and over again somewhere above him. Ocelot saw his feet spinning idly as he twisted around, frantically searching the room. "Holy fucking shit, Ocelot, you alright?"

"As fine as I can be," Ocelot deadpanned, lacing every syllable with the implied "no, I am obviously in a considerable amount of pain (you dipshit)". The invitation to banter did not reclaim Kaz's attention.

"You felt that too, right? I swear to god, that wasn't me, I felt something grab the chair."

It was almost funny. Not the pratfall-nutshot combo, that was obviously hilarious to anyone whose crotch wasn't simultaneously on fire and numb. No, the funny part was that Kaz couldn't see the responsible party standing directly behind him.

Ocelot kept his eyes on the wall. Don't look up, don't acknowledge them.

"I. I'll..." They're not real,you͝ ͝k̴n̷o҉w ̵t̵he҉y'̴re ̕͠n͏̨o͟͡t̛҉ ̸̢r̡eąl̵̨, aň̵̊dͧͫ ͆ͫ̅̑̃͑ỳo͗̆̂̏ͣu̾ͬ g̈e͒ͦt̉͂̉̽͜ ͤ̎̓yͦ͑̓̈͝ő̊̓̽̔ͬ͂u̷ͬ͌̉͛̈́ͬr̶͑̈́ ̉̈́̓̀ͩ͘sͫ̌́͟tͩ͂͂̊̐̀̇u͆͒͊b̔b̨̈͑̃̎o̴ͭͦrͯͮ͒̐ͮn̨̔ͮ͑ͯ̅͐ͤn̸̚e̓̋̅ͨ̔ͮͪs̅͘s̕ ͧ͌̈́͆͞fȑom̋ ͐̇͋ͮͨ̇ỳ̸̒͆o͜ù͆͛͛̋̈rͥͩͨ̓ͨ ̅̈͛ͮͫ̄̇mͤͮͩͮͧ̉̚͜otͫͭ́̄ͨ̑͂ḧ̓̋ͧ̄̓͌e͂̃̓r̾̂ͫ̃͊.̴ͨ̍̚

 "...Give me a͏̷̧̛͢ ̸̢ m̵om͡en̢t," he hissed, "...give you a witty remark later."

Kaz whistled in sympathy. "Oh, yeah, it must've got you good. Cockblocked by a poltergeist..." he added to himself, most unhelpfully.

Ocelot only rolled over and got up after a pair of grass-stained white combat boots stepped carefully into his vision, nudging him with a toe, the horrible chill shooting through his veins again as it sank into his shin. Like he was made out of fog and she was the solid one. And she _kept doing it_ even when Ocelot twitched his leg away. Trying to touch him. Trying to work out how she'd been corporeal enough to grab Kaz's chair even when her hand had gone clean through his.

Ocelot doubted a _clear and obvious delusion_ could pick him up and throw him across the room, unless the whole room and Kaz along with it were also just a trick of his mind. But - Ocelot flexed his hand to try and work some feeling back into it - he didn't doubt she would try, and he didn't want to know what it would feel like to have ice cold hands that both felt solid and simply _weren't_ clipping into his torso.

What must his face look like at this exact moment, he wondered. There wasn't really a way to play off the violent derailing of his thoughts or the way he made his eyes unfocus, but was Kaz seeing a mask of blind terror (unlikely, even if Ocelot had been surprised by just how close she now was to him) or just a blank thousand-yard stare?

 

"Ocelot? Hey, earth to- oh, _fuck_."

Fingertips flashed through the face in front of him and that made her step aside. Kaz had gone from waving a hand to catch his attention to shaking it out the same way Ocelot had been, trying to get feeling back into it. "Jesus Christ... look, not to carry on or anything, but I just put a hand right about-" he waved it right where her head had been a moment ago, "here, and I swear it felt like I’d just dunked it in ice water."

Ocelot held himself steady while he made a show of giving Kaz’s hand a brief physical. "Might be your circulation?" Pulse normal, color fine, low surface temperature could be chalked up to the room's climate and relative perception. "Seems normal to me, but I was already thinking of dropping by Medical if you want to get it looked at."

"...I... guess it can't hurt." Kaz sounded convinced, but behind those sunglasses, his eyes would still be darting around the room. "Got you that bad, huh?"

The power of suggestion operated on one's own expectations. Humans were social animals, they molded their expectations and dispositions, even unconsciously, to match the dominant attitude of their environment.

"Nah, not the chair, I've had way worse." Ocelot teetered on the brink of his next words for a second or two before adding, "...antipsychotics," with a sigh of reluctant admittance.

Kaz scrutinized him as he got to his feet. "Antipsychotics?" Ocelot just waved him off.

"Nothing to worry about, it's an issue I've dealt with for a long time, even though it hasn't flared up this bad in years. Trust me, if I ever thought I couldn't trust my own eyes and ears, I'd have contingencies in place."

Staring pointedly at them would be acknowledging their presence and therefore counterproductive. You just had to ignore them until they _went away._

 

D̢̊͆͑̀ͨ͡ŏ̡̨̓ͫͯ̐ͣ ̒̀̅̏͒̐ͦ҉y̾͂͒҉ǫ͗ͥͭ̔̏ͯ̽͆̕͟u̒̿͠ ̢ͯ͒r̷͗̉̾̋ͨe̢ͯ͌͢a̔̉̎͆̌ͥ̉͘͢l̑͗ͥͣ̒ͬ͂ͥ̈͠l̛͆̒ͯÿ́̅ͥ́̒̒̉͏͢ ̶ͬ̇ͧͫ͊ͮ̚t̓̇̈́̒̌͑̃ͥͭh̊̀̏ͫ͒̿͢i̴̧ͮ̓ͨ̐̇͢n̂ͧ̎̂҉͢͠k̀̌͌̑̈͒͞ ̛̃͒ͣ͆̈ͨ͘ẘ̢̎̈e̴͂'̈́̾ͩ͠҉͏r̎̍͐ẻ̛ͯ͑̇ͤ͑ͣ͌͡ ̢ͩ̓é̍ͮ̓̍̊͋͡͠v̊̋ͣ̐͏ë́ͬ͐̃͋̓ͯ̎͐҉͘r̛̽̓ͯ̅͊ͤͨ͘͜ ̍̾̿ͫͮ̐͋ͦ͡nͤ̅͑ͮ̂ͦo̅͐ͭ͑̅ͪ̚tͣͬ̃̀̎̒ͩ҉ ̂͋̉̈̐ͣͪ̚w͌̿̇̓a͒̋̏̆ͤ̂ͤͩ͏t͊ͨ̇ͪͮͭ͌cͤͨ̈́h͊i̧͂ͨͬ̉̉n̸̢̛̅̾̃̒g̡̏̂ͭ̋͋͟ ̶̓̑̓̓o̽͗ͬ̽̔͋̕͝v̧̛̈́̔̋̀̄ͭĕ̴̛ͦ̅ͩͧ̓ͣ̌rͦ́ͧͥ ̧͋͒̏͋̽y̡͊͐̅͂͟o̴͋͒ͩ̀͌̊͜͡u̴͆̾ͭ̈͛͗͒?̴ͤ͋͏̵

Even with Ocelot intent on avoiding eye contact, Kaz was still intent on catching him. “Hallucinations. You."

He settled on looking at the ceiling as he folded his arms. Fine, if Kaz was going to make him commit to this… "Some mild form of psychosis, but you didn't hear that from me. A part of the brain misfiring and another part misinterpreting it as stimuli that aren't actually there. I... thought I heard something at R&D," Ocelot added, like a guilty confession, "but I'd chalk it up to that before I suspected paranormal activity."

"What'd you hear?"

Only then was the reluctance genuine.

"...My name."

Kaz could go ahead and speculate which one, he'd get no hint one way or the other.

"Real loud, too, and it wasn't the AI Pod talking. You'd have known if you'd heard it."

That he could even have that kind of reaction to the name not even John called him anymore, it’d… surprised him? ...Shocked him? Whatever minute variation of vocabulary best described it, the atmosphere had wound him up and then his own misfiring brain had reached out to rattle his chain, and rattle it hard.

Kaz shook his head. "I didn't... so, what, you think I put the idea in your head somehow?"

"That'd be my answer."

The reaction was a little more mixed than Ocelot had been hoping, the line between Kaz's eyebrows wrinkling as he rolled the idea around in his head. But, that kind of skepticism was how Kaz earned the credit Ocelot gave him.

Ocelot made to leave the room, assuming Kaz would follow, glancing back only when there was an off beat in the rhythm of his one-legged walk-

He turned back around just as fast and told himself he hadn't seen. Not the man in the dark raincoat grabbing Kaz by the shoulders, head inclined as though to whisper in his ear. But the way Kaz was frozen in place. Eyes wide and face turning pale, as though he could feel it, and as though he had heard whatever had been said.

There wasn't a safe way for either of them to back down anymore. Kaz, like most people, wanted to be right.

There was a reason Ocelot had never had the patience to find a regiment that worked. None of the chemical cocktails he’d experimented with over the years had ever driven the delusions away, and he’d been left to deal with the side effects as well as the stubborn phantoms. And the withdrawal symptoms afterward were always a bitch and a half. He’d take dealing with the hallucinations instead, rather than being slowed down by neurochemical sabotage.

Of course, that was assuming they’d always be manageable. This challenge made them more disruptive than they’d ever been before. Even when they weren't trying to get his attention, weren't screaming at him, didn't stand _directly ahead of him_  and force him to either go through that horrible full-body cold shock or conspicuously avoid them, even when Ocelot couldn't see them, he could hear them. Not just distant whispered snatches, either, but full conversations, loud as life.

He’d willingly admit it - at least to himself: There was every reason to listen to them. You could easily say the apparitions were his subconscious telling him what his logical brain already knew; this ritual nonsense was a waste of time and energy, and he'd lose nothing in the long run by calling it off. He could let Kaz be right this one time. And if he didn't...

Oh, what? What was the worst that could happen? Nothing? There was no such thing as miracles or the supernatural. Everything had a naturalistic explanation if you were willing to go looking for it. Nothing would happen. Nothing could. And “nothing” was just what he needed to set his scrambled mind at ease without needing to acknowledge its by-products.

Unfortunately, that meant he still had to go through the motions of setting up their little voodoo circle in one of the spare storehouses. One of the empty concrete rooms that Ocelot kept set aside, just in case you needed somewhere nice and quiet, out of the way where people wouldn't go sticking their nose, for… whatever reason. Still, it wouldn't do to just leave a giant chalk pentagram on the floor if anyone did happen to drop by - not with the ghost stories still circulating among the staff - and the workaround Ocelot devised was begging to be shown off.

"So what was it you wanted to show me?"

Ocelot couldn't help but smile as he threw the switch, bathing the warehouse floor in patterned red light. Like a giant version of a child’s stencil, the shadows formed the complicated geometry where Ocelot had blacked out the spotlight, no drawing necessary.

Kaz turned slowly on the spot, taking in the array projected around his feet. "Impressive. What did you do, order a custom lens?"

"Nope, this was made in-house. See," Ocelot pointed at the red lamp overhead, "all I had to do was xerox the drawing from Strangelove's notes onto a transparency slide, the kind you use in overhead projectors, and melt it onto the lens. Took a few tries to get it right without any of the details warping, but imagine the pain in the ass we just saved ourselves drawing it out in chalk."

"Alright. I was just thinking we use a line chalker, mix up the ingredients in the hopper, and-"

Ocelot mimed the shape of the circle. "Follow the guide."

"Yeah, beats the hell out of sprinkling it all over this thing. That's one a headache taken care of... And," Kaz's smile was full of nervous excitement, “your timing’s perfect, too. Full moon’s next week, and Venom and Quiet are shipping out. They should be gone ‘til well past it.”

Deadlines. They always had that curious effect of sharpening the mind, boiling the nebulous future down to a concrete point.

Ocelot didn’t return the smile. “You're that serious about this.”

Kaz gestured at their feet. “Are we or are we not standing in the middle of a magic summoning circle?”

Hopefully the small muscle reflex was in his head and Kaz did not actually see his eyebrow twitch at the mention of The “M” Word. “This is a glorified party trick, it took me less than an hour to make. How much more time you expect to waste on this?”

He was expecting Kaz to get defensive, was expecting the strain in his expression. And he was trying to forget the clear, obvious ~~fact~~ _hallucination_ of one of his phantoms having spoken to the other man, and being heard.

Kaz pulling himself upright was returning an offense to play defense, getting up close to Ocelot another game. “ ... are you chickening out on me?”

Ocelot wasn’t gonna be the one to blink first. “Miller-”

Kaz stared at him over his aviators. “C'mon.” The worst that can happen is nothing, he clearly wanted to say, and he had a point.

He had to have a point.

“What else are you gonna be doing, paperwork? Mission support? Beating off alone? Either way, you might as well have a little company.” As Kaz got closer, the bravado betrayed something in his eyes. Like a rabbit darting across a field, as though fleeing a fox. “What's the matter... you scared I'm right?”

“Absolutely not,” Ocelot interjected, and knew immediately he’d done too quickly. Kaz had retreated behind the mirrored lenses again, smirking.

“Fun things you can do with candle wax.”

“Oh, I'm aware…” Ocelot folded his arms, resolutely ignoring the shi͏ft͝ing s̷hadǫwş at the edge̛ ͜of̶ the r̛o͝ǫm. “So... what're you doing this Saturday?”

* * *

 

That night, it rained.

You really couldn't have picked a better night for a dramatic cliche. Within minutes of Ocelot pulling the Jeep up, the mood cast over the full moon had turned into an angry, growling thunderstorm dumping buckets onto the warehouse roof.

Maybe Kaz _was_ starting to feel the heebie-jeebies. Messing with this stuff had a tendency to do that to you. Kaz had never cared much about the supernatural, but like most stupid teenagers, he had once been dared into playing that Bloody Mary game (or her Japanese cousin, Hariko-san, he really couldn’t remember which). It was Ocelot’s synchronicity and suggestion all over again - just the right environment and the power of human imagination. There were never any ghosts in the bathroom with you, but the expectation, the mystery, that was what turned every flicker in the shadows and unexpected noise into phantoms.

The rain drilling down outside caged them in the dark box of the warehouse, cutting them off from the rest of the base with its persistent hush. Kaz probably should’ve said something about the spotlight-stencil when he had the chance; Ocelot’s showing off left them working by the dim red light, the flickering candle flames making shadows dance in the bordering darkness. Try as he might to ignore it, Kaz kept looking over his shoulder as he dragged the line chalker across the sigil shape, hearing more ghostly whispers under the pouring rain.

If one of them would just… say something, take the piss out of this ridiculous thing they were doing, it would help. Ocelot’s medication must’ve been making him space out - that is, he hoped it was the medication, and Ocelot hadn’t just fucked off to La-La Land and left Kaz to deal while the rest of him ran on autopilot - or worse: he was actually starting to take this seriously.

They’d locked themselves in the bathroom, turned the lights out, and were now in the process of working up the courage to say “Bloody Mary”’s. And of course, they’d never admit they were scared shitless by doing something so practical as turning the lights back on, or just fucking leaving.

Maybe Ocelot had been damn near dead silent this entire evening, but even if he was pushing them for the sake of the game, the man knew his own limits. You could rely on him to get the job done, even if the job he was doing wasn’t the job everyone around him thought he was doing. He hadn’t had another full-scale freak-out like the one in the office, unable to hide his flash of horror or the way he stiffened like he’d been flash-frozen.

Kaz wasn’t sure whether to put that whole incident out of his mind or not. Medical had reported prescribing antipsychotics (although they were very mum on who to). Ocelot being genuinely fucked in the head would explain a lot about the man, and if he was seeing things, he could easily be winding Kaz up without meaning to. Synchronicity and suggestion.

Even minutes after it happened, he wasn’t sure if he could actually believe his ears - it was too perfect. The same voice he’d heard on R&D, deep and resonant, right in his ear. _“"͗̈́ͦ̚H͌̌̎̆̏ͩ̈ͨe͐̐ͯ’͒̄͋͊̎sͧ̈́̾̉ͯ̓ͥͭ ͗͐ͮ̉̊l͑ͬy̏͗͋i̎̍̎͂̅̉nͧ̊̈́ͯg͛͒ͫ̂ͧ ͧͬ͑ͨ̋ẗ́̽͋̎̓̓ͤ̔o͑͗͑̌̿ ͥ̌y͒̈́͌̔̇ŏ͂̀̈͂u̓.̀̇̾̿ͮ”͌ͭͣ_

Okay, yeah. Wow, mysterious spirit voice. Ocelot, lying? There’s a fucking revelation right there. Now if you could put a little less effort into being so goddamn cryptic and been more specific, Kaz might know where they stood. If they’d just been wound up and were jumping at shadows. What was the alternative? That they’d really been talking to-

Ghosts.

Hah.

Yeah.

Right...

Ocelot stood up and brushed the ingredients for one grow-your-own abomination off himself. A ring of glowing little flames enclosed them in the center of the grayish dust. “That’s that.”

“Right. Ready to get this over with?” Kaz waved a charcoal-cocktail-covered hand in front of Ocelot’s face when the other man didn’t respond. “Hey! Earth to Ocelot? What’s the matter, seeing ghosts again?”

Ocelot’s eyes flicked over to - Kaz’s sunglasses were off in the dim light, he couldn’t disguise following Ocelot’s gaze - what turned out to be an empty corner at the edge of the room. “No,” he said slowly, “no, I was just... thinking… checking off the list. You’ve got the bandana, right?”

Kaz shook the sleeve of his overcoat back, showing the strip of fabric tied securely to his wrist. Seemed like the best place to keep it where he couldn’t forget it. Or where a ghost couldn’t sabotage them by poltergeisting it into the ocean.

“And the-” Ocelot was coming back to himself, thank god, as he sighed audibly over having to say it out loud, _”virgin blood?"_

Kaz hardly had time to feel relieved before he remembered. Ah yes. So he had forgotten something.

“Well,” he started, “you’d be shocked how hard it is to find an actual virgin around base…”

Oh well. Shame to come this far only to have to call the whole thing off. But hey, tomorrow, when this whole thing blew over, they could look back on this and laugh at themselves.

Ocelot rolled his eyes. “I gotta do everything myself, don’t I?”

“Um.” Kaz hadn’t… noticed any conspicuous absences from the staff roster, nor from Medical’s store of transfusion packs. His confusion only grew when Ocelot flicked a knife out of his belt. “Okay, we’re not confused about the meaning of ‘virgin’ here, are we?”

“It is a decent question, given the breadth of potential sexual activities humans are capable of getting up to. So it’s worth asking, 'what qualifies as virginity?' And when you got around to doing that much, you might do a little research and find that, in actual witchcraft circles, 'virgin' simply refers to one whose vital fluids haven't been used prior for ritual purposes. 'Cause spirits can tell, you see," he finished with a note of sarcasm. Kaz wasn’t laughing; while Ocelot drawled on, he drew a deep slice into his own forearm with wince-inducing deliberation. He hardly seemed to react at all as he bled himself onto the concrete.

"Jesus." Kaz backed away from spreading red puddle. "You really need that much?"

"Why not?” There was something decidedly unsettling in the way Ocelot stared at him, unflinching, holding his gaze captive while he untied the bandana - except for the way his cheeks were starting to lose color. “I thought you’d want to give it the best possible chance of working, if it were going to work at all. This way, we've got a personal item _and_  some biological component of the subject's."

It took a moment before the implication hit him and everything clicked into place.

Kaz found himself grasping for a response - _that_ felt like it deserved some kind of acknowledgment - but he was coming up dry. It felt like he'd just been brained by a misplaced supply drop.

"You never said," he offered lamely.

"I didn't. I don't make a habit of advertising it, you can count the people who know on one hand. Snake is one of 'em." Ocelot shrugged, stumbling very slightly as he squeezed his other hand over the cut. He stepped carefully out of their voodoo circle to go bandage it.

"We were separated right after I was born, only time I actually met her was during Operation Snake Eater. And besides," he called over his shoulder, “what purpose would telling people serve?”

"That's... kind of ironic," Kaz said, a hint of sympathy finding its way into his words. Ocelot was impassive. "So what, your blood's half as potent, so we use twice as much?"

"That's the idea. Now come on, let's get this over with."

So far they had endured with dignity relatively intact, Ocelot’s run-in with the desk chair aside. But standing next to the magic circle and reciting a mangled Latin spell was rubbing up against Kaz’s limits, just personally speaking. Like a hokey blend of a hippy commune and some of the festivals Kaz remembered from his childhood. But those he associated with crowds and ritual, religious solemnity or culturally shared joy. None of them called for a dark stormy night and a worrying amount of blood drying on the concrete floor. This felt more like he'd joined a cult - not the cult of Big Boss that he'd been running for the past decade or so, but the kind you got in bad movies. With the proper lights back on, Kaz found himself dangerously close to laughing. Yeah, give 'em the dusty old tome Strangelove had dredged this crap up from and some oversized bathrobes, they could be the Elucidated Order of the Snake Fuckers or something.

Kaz stumbled along Ocelot's own droning recitations once he got a handle on the rhythm. Maybe it was the blood loss, but the other man looked like he was almost in a trance, his eyelids fluttering half-closed as he swayed on his feet. Far from helping how stupid this was, Ocelot's eyes rolling up into his head and the droning incantation made the room... chillier. Eerier. The candle flames were either guttering or it was a trick of Kaz's vision, as he concentrated on not fucking up the Latin, or keeping Ocelot from concussing himself when he inevitably passed out.

He really thought it was his eyes at first. His damaged vision letting the shadows bleed inwards and swallowing the most distant candles. But then the other flames winked out like vanishing stars and didn't reappear when he blinked. He ought to have called the whole thing off right then and there, just let Ocelot win the damn bet and put up with his insufferable smugness over the incident, but he didn't. They were locked in, Kaz's mind disassociated from his mouth as it seemed he'd slipped into the same chanting trance Ocelot was in, left with the awareness they were now in complete darkness and the horrible, creeping feeling that they no longer alone.

He was quietly grateful to hear Ocelot falter too when something slithered, or maybe skittered along the concrete, though he didn't dare break from the final lines of the spell.

After that came the fireworks.

It felt like a blank space in the memory, or like a forgotten dream after the fact. Kaz knew _something_ had happened, and that it was pretty goddamned dramatic, but he couldn't for the life of him remember specific details. That piece had simply dropped out of the puzzle of his memory, and when the crackles of white faded from his vision, they were back in the normal, non-visceral darkness of the warehouse.  
He flinched violently when he felt something touch his shoulder, but it was just Ocelot, grabbing him for support as he swayed. Red was leaking through the bandages on his arm.

"Christ, don't scare me like that-"

Ocelot cut him off by pointing at the center of the circle, where Kaz had avoided looking.

Ice seemed to settle on his skin. Yes, there was a human figure curled up on the now-bloodless concrete, stark naked, blonde hair spilled out behind her. Even with her back to them, you could tell she was breathing.

Kaz's mouth went dry. Oh goddamnit. _Goddamnit._

Both he and Ocelot were stock-still. Ocelot was frozen by both disbelief and blood loss. Kaz, by waiting for some unspeakable monster to pounce when they didn't fall for the trap.

Slowly, it- _she_ \- pushed herself up on a hand, like a sleeper waking, and surveyed the room. Kaz heard Ocelot inhale sharply when her alert, open eyes found them. She didn't sprout tentacles or extra eyes or unhinge her jaw and lunge at them or anything like that, just. Stared at them. Judging. Calculating.

This was a test, and Ocelot was determined to be completely useless for it. So Kaz approached, the same way you might with a wild cat or a wolf, waiting for her to bare teeth. Was he overthinking this, or was she not blinking?

From the childlike pose her rebirth had left her in, Kaz expected something like helping her up onto shaking fawn legs, but no. This was - oh man - this was The Boss. Capital T. Even if she was just a… a mimic, or illusion of some kind, for his money? She was pretty damn convincing. He'd never managed to dig up any photographs of her, couldn't have told you exactly what she looked like, but Kaz could feel that this was the person the legend had been in life. She rose to her feet like a waking giant. Give her the gear and she could've been a valkyrie.

So this was her. The woman whose ghost Snake had chased for nearly a decade.

Kaz wordlessly shrugged off his trenchcoat as he closed the gap. While whatever dark forces they'd summoned on a fifty dollar bet saw fit to give her back what looked like every scar she'd ever earned, the deal had not come with clothes. She didn't seem particularly bothered by this, but Kaz was unnerved enough without having to watch where he was staring. And Ocelot would probably appreciate a few certain mysteries being left as mysteries. This was his-

...okay, he was gonna need a bit longer to process that one.

All of her movements had been slow and deliberate, like she was testing out her own strength. But when Kaz reached out, she caught his wrist in a grip that was like tempered steel.

"What," she said, low and dangerous, with a withering stare that sent chills up his spine, "have you _done?_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to my printmaking classes for the Xerox transparency trick. Since the ink printed on the transparent sheets is acid-resistant, we use them when etching copper intaglio plates.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to get this out on Mother's Day and circumstances transpired against me being able to write up to the actual Magic Bullshit by that deadline. So yeah, this is now a multi-parter. It won't take as long to update as Paradox Backlash, I promise.


End file.
